


All The Kingdom For You

by cottonwoolsocks



Series: Whumptober 2019 [8]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Are Twins, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Angst, Embrace, Explosions, Gen, Guns, Human shield, Major Character Injury, Prince Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Remus is a Duke, Remus is a Prince, Siblings, Whumptober 2019, also technically:, gunpoint, stay with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 19:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21258707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottonwoolsocks/pseuds/cottonwoolsocks
Summary: There are some battles even Roman can’t win.“It was only supposed to be a game.”





	All The Kingdom For You

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober prompts 2 (explosion), 4 (human shield), 5 (gunpoint), 17 (“Stay with me”), 31 (embrace).
> 
> Get ready for a feels trip.
> 
> Roman loves his brother, as much as he would hate to admit it.

Roman’s eyes slid to one side, searching for a means of escape although he knew anything he tried would likely end in ruin. The hilt of his sword was just visible over the edge of the broken rubble that was once a mighty castle, his shield lost and probably buried somewhere nearby—both items firmly unreachable, and not a shred of use to him now.

If he stayed still, he would die for certain. If he moved—well, there was certainly nothing worse that could happen.

He took a shaky breath, raised his trembling hands, and stood up, revealing himself from where he had been wedged uncomfortably against the edge of a tumbled wall, to face the gun now trained directly at his chest.

“You don't have to shoot,” he said, although he knew how foolish he sounded.

The green-cloaked figure raised the barrel, hardly heeding his words, and then three things happened very fast and very suddenly.

An explosion went off from beside Roman’s right ear, beginning a ringing in his ears that he'd never quite be rid of.

The gunshot might have fired, although it was hard to tell over the sound of the explosion, and Roman judged by the lack of searing pain that irregardless he hadn't been hit.

From somewhere nearby, somewhere Roman would never quite find out precisely, Remus appeared in front of Roman, knocking them both to the ground just as a wave of searing heat and rubble tore over them.

A moment later it subsided, although it took another moment for Roman’s head to stop spinning and his brain to catch up.

He blinked his eyes open to see an ashy grey sky flecked with dust and cinders, and a weight on his chest.

He shifted, patting his brother’s head insistently to try and remove the other man from him. They weren't exactly on the best of terms, what with Remus having practically led the attack focused here on Roman’s ground, but that didn't mean Roman wasn't maybe, perhaps, _just_ _a little_ relieved to see his only blood relative, still alive and well.

Remus shifted slightly with a groan of protest, sending Roman’s mind reeling back to childhood days spent trying to drag his slightly-older-but-only-by-seven-minutes-so-it-doesn't-_really_-count brother out of bed so they could go play in the castle grounds. Taking a leaf from that particular book, he rolled his eyes good-humouredly and hefted both himself and Remus upright, setting his twin in front of him and heaving a deep breath to try and reinflate his rib cage.

Remus raised his eyebrows and scrunched his nose, shaking his head a little to rid his hair of the small white flecks of ash now lodged there. “Fancy seeing you here, dearest prince.” The nickname struck a chord with Roman, a smile spreading across his face.

“You're the one storming my castle, oh brother of mine.” Roman gestured widely to the destruction and debris surrounding them. “It's a shame I couldn't offer better hospitality to my favourite sibling.”

“I'm your only sibling,” he replied, but he seemed distracted, distant, voice uncharacteristically soft and face eerily pale. A trembling hand touched his stomach and came back sticky with something dark, and red, and very, very bad. Roman's heart jolted, and he barely time to process the nausea as Remus’s knees gave out from under him, gaze unfocused and blinking rapidly. Remus tried to say something again, an attempt at something humorous as the ghost of a smirk danced across his features, but it was gone a moment later and replaced instead with a hacking cough, spraying Roman’s shirt dark.

Remus’s smile was strained. “Does that mean I'm also your least favourite sibling?”

Roman took a deep breath, trying to hold himself together and not think about ten seconds from now, five minutes from now, when it would be... “Don't speak, Rem, you're going to be okay,” said Roman, although he knew every word was false. There was no one alive within shouting distance, and certainly no one with medical knowledge. The only thing they could do was— was—

Remus’s laugh was short, and coarse, and pained. “Now, brother, you know lying is bad.”

The tears were coming, the tears were coming, but Roman refused to let them through. Refused. If he cried now, he'd never hear the end of it from Remus, Remus would tease him about it tomorrow, they'd laugh about it. They would.

Roman’s fists clenched tighter onto the material of Remus’s shirt.

“You're gonna be fine,” he said, although he wasn't sure if it was more for Remus’s comfort or his own. “You're gonna be _fine_, Rem, you're gonna be fine, and then we're gonna laugh about this afterwards. You still have to get me back for the last duel, remember? We still have to- to- to—”

The tears began.

Remus drew in a breath, a breath that wheezed terribly and sent him into another coughing fit, and he couldn't hold back the groan of pain at the movement. He raised a wavering hand and thwapped Roman gently across the forehead. His next words were quieter, although Roman didn't want to think about the implications of that. “I thought _I_ was supposed to be the emotionally unstable twin.”

Roman laughed, although it sounded more like a sob. There was a smile on his face and he wasn't sure why. “Then, then prove it! I—I'm supposed to— This isn't— It can't… like this...” And suddenly the words wouldn't stop, and Roman’s feelings were spilling from his mouth like the blood from the gunshot wound, both too fast, both unexpected, both with no signs of stopping. “We're supposed to keep fighting for ever and ever, we’re supposed to pretend we hate each other even though we don't really, we’re supposed to capture each other and then let each other get away, we’re supposed to have a duel that settles everything and then— and then realise we have a bigger common enemy, and fight them instead, together, and we’ll finally be a team, and we can forget all about this stupid game we’ve been playing, it's— it was only supposed to be a game.”

“And my piece is out. Yours isn't, brother—keep playing. We were—” Remus paused for another hacking cough and Roman flinched, watching as Remus’s face contorted in momentary pain, unable to tear his eyes away, terrified he'd disappear if he even glanced to the side.“We were naïve. _Forget_ about Dad. Forget about the feud. Help the people, unite the kingdoms. Maybe… Maybe this was meant to happen. Maybe I have to die, so the kingdoms can be saved.”

“_No!_ You don't have to die! There's always another way. There's _always_ another way.”

Remus’s hand squeezed Roman’s gently, unable to pull the energy that would have been required to give his brother a light cuff across the cheek.

Remus blinked. And then he didn't.

No. No, no, no.

_No, no, no, no, no, no, no—_

“Stay with me, Remus, stay with me–”

Someone was wailing, someone somewhere, and Roman felt a surge of unbridled rage wash over him— why weren't they helping?! Why was nobody here? Someone had to save Remus, goddamnit, he wasn't letting this happen again—

“Remus, you can't, you— we have to fight _together_.”

Remus didn't move. Roman collapsed, holding his brother to his chest in a desperate embrace as the true reality of the situation cascaded over him, heart torn grotesquely from his chest, and he begged to whomever would listen, please, _please_, bring his brother back, or else let him die, too, and escape the pain.

Quietly, despairingly, his voice fell to a whisper as the sky came crashing down.

“_We have to fight together._”

**Author's Note:**

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